Hi! I’m Sinclair.

I’m a writer and performer, and I lead workshops online and at colleges about using identity and power as tools for liberation. That’s a fancy way of saying that I write and study ways of becoming more myself. Through fields like feminism, queerness, trans & genderqueer genders, BDSM & kink, the transformative power of creative expression, and a variety of spiritual practices, I study myself and the places where I interact with the world. I write as a way to process information, and teach as a way to integrate what I know more deeply.

Qualification wise, I have degrees in both gender studies and creative writing from the University of Washington in Seattle (2004), and I spent many years working as a bookseller and a graphic designer. I also studied performance poetry for five years at Bent Writing Institute for Queers in Seattle, and completed a teaching artist training in New York City in 2006 and a Sacred Intimacy through a Tantric lens training in Seattle in 2012. I studied with the Body Electric School from 1999-2013, where I assisted and produced workshops and became the national women’s coordinator for five years. I co-founded the organization Body Trust in 2014 to do more radically inclusive erotic embodiment work.

So how did I get here?

I’ve been writing and sharing online since 1996, through photography, online journaling, and then blogging (as it became known), always with a confessional element about my personal life and conflicts. Sugarbutch started in 2006, when I was struggling with a “bed death” relationship where we stopped having sex. I started writing more erotica to try to work on my erotic life (without a partner), and began compiling it here. That girlfriend and I inevitably broke up, and Sugarbutch became the place where I chronicled my search for a partner, but while still keeping myself strong and keeping our sex life vibrant. I used it to work through my sexuality, high sex drive, kinky tendencies, power dynamic desires, cravings for butch/femme culture, and the one night stands and relationships that I was exploring. It has been my community, my confidant, my confessional, my place of learning, the best friend that I call late at night when I’m panicking … and more.

At first, Sugarbutch was anonymous, but I started revealing my identity more and more in the growing New York City sex blog community, and in 2008 I started teaching workshops on the things I was writing about. That led me to more integration, and to “coming out” as Sinclair, and moving toward running this site (and all the things around it that make it possible) as my full time business.

After 9 years in New York City, I moved to Oakland in 2013. I live with my boy rife, my black & white tuxedo cat, and our wonder dog. I’m an aries with a cancer moon and taurus rising, an INFJ, a Highly Sensitive Person. (I have yet to figure out my Enneagram type because that system kind of confuzzles me, but I’m curious about it.)

Mastering Dominance: A group coaching course limited to 10 people where we each get time to share where we’re at in our dominant journey and where our edges are. The simple power of witness, vulnerability, and community can be transformative.

Submissive Playground: Started in 2014, this is an 8-week course jam-packed with curated content from D/s experts and guests, each of the 4 units has materials to consume, an experiment to do (on your own or with a dominant), and homework to complete.

About the site

In 2015, Sugarbutch is exploring a new structure. Thanks to Patreon, one post a week is funded! I’m beyond thrilled about the changes I’ve already been able to make, like removing the ads and making the layout more work-friendly (with less images of naked people).

Starting in February 2015, each of 5 posts per month will be the chapters of an erotic novella, which will be compiled as an ebook the next month. This novella will be free for Patrons (sign up + support my work please!) and offered to everyone via the standard ebook formats.

My essays will continue to be published on other online magazines, and my personal journal entries will go to the Patrons directly.

The official (short) Mr. Sexsmith bio

Sinclair Sexsmith is a genderqueer kinky butch writer who teaches and performs, specializing in sexualities, genders, and relationships. They’ve written at sugarbutch.net since 2006, recognized numerous places as one of the Top Sex Blogs. Sinclair’s gender theory and queer erotica is widely published in anthologies and online, and they are the editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 2012 and Say Please: Lesbian BDSM Erotica, both published by Cleis Press. In 2014, Sinclair’s own Maverick Press published Sweet & Rough: Sixteen Stories of Queer Smut. They use the pronouns they, them, theirs, themself.

Want to get in touch?

Y’all, I get so much email. So. Much. And I spend a lot of time answering it, but it still piles up. In an attempt to make my email inbox more manageable, please use the contact form to get in touch.